Bag of Rags

Join Lori Haught, Woodcraft Marketing Manager and Woodworking Adventures Blogger, for Part I of a three-part series on refurbishing a unique thrift store find — a Telephone Gossip Bench.

Bankers are “numbers people,” but Liz McGill-Bleakley of St. Marys, West Virginia, also has a creative side that led to a stress-relieving hobby – refurbishing furniture. “I have been banking for 34 years,” Liz explains. “Painting furniture started by accident. I had seen some items in catalogs that I liked, but didn’t want to pay big money for them. I thought, ‘I can do that!’”

Carve a set of wee folk just in time for Christmas! 

Take those bland old end tables and make them grand again with a few easy steps and some help from General Finishes.

Painting kitchen cabinets is a big job, but it can transform the look of your kitchen at a fraction of the cost of new cabinets. It may sound daunting, but breaking it down into bite-size steps can take away the fear factor.

I just bought a used table saw that seems to be in pretty good condition except for some rust on the table. What’s the best way to clean it up, and how do I prevent it from happening again in the future? —Sherry Anatole, Birmingham, Alabama

The idea of incorporating family heirlooms into your home appeals to a lot of people. A mix of old and new décor can actually work very well together to create a space that is warm and inviting with a comfortable lived-in look. Woodcraft’s graphic designer Tara Piggott reimagined a travel trunk built by her grandfather into a beautiful storage trunk for her home. Check out how she did it in this Woodworking Adventures blog. 

Early in my woodworking career, I lived by the maxim that I would never artificially color the wood I was using.